


Time Pieces

by that_runneth



Category: Tron (1982), Tron (Movies), Tron - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-14
Updated: 2016-06-20
Packaged: 2018-05-26 16:01:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 11,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6246442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/that_runneth/pseuds/that_runneth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Time pieces from the alternate storyline where the Master Control Program sends Alan Bradley to the Game Grid instead of Flynn.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

  “Well,” Lora asked; she pulled out the keys of the van from her pocket and held them up invitingly. “Shall we dance?”

 

  They looked at each other, quiet now; it was one thing of having the heated conversation earlier and it was another thing to drive up to the ENCOM building and break in after hours. But Flynn jumped on his feet immediately and Alan followed suit without hesitation.

 

  Lora parked the company’s van right at the entrance. They went to the rear entrance, where there were no security guards. There was no way they could enter through the main gate, as they did every morning, flashing their badges while walking toward the elevators. Seeing the enormous, red gate in the back, Alan Bradley felt suspicious whether they would be able to get in from here.

 

  Lora took out her magnet card hesitantly, but she turned to Alan before swiping it.

 

  “I don’t think I’m cleared for this,” she said nervously. Her eyes were large, focused behind her glasses.

 

  “Well, I’m certainly not,” Alan replied with similar anxiousness. He was trying to ignore Kevin Flynn, who seemed to be entertained by their desperate expressions and by the fact that their short lived criminal carrier was going to get to an end before actually beginning. Alan found himself being annoyed at the other programmer once more: Flynn was wearing casual jeans and a grey-red jacket, as if he was trying to make sure to leave a lasting impression, should he be spotted inside. Alan sighed.

 

  “You wanna move aside?” Flynn asked loudly, putting his hands on Lora’s and Alan’s shoulders. “Give the kid a little room.”

 

  “Will you shush?” Alan asked him.

 

  Flynn pulled out another magnet card; he must have submitted his own when he was terminated, but the one he was holding in his hand, appeared to be identical to that. He began to work on the door lock mechanism.

 

  “This guy’s a little like Santa Claus,” Alan told Lora, who responded with a short, knowing nod.

 

  “Make these myself,” Flynn said. “You want one?”

 

  The light on the control panel turned green and the door unlocked with a reverberating click. Flynn turned and looked in Alan’s face closely with a poker face. Alan did not react, so Flynn grinned and looked at Lora. The door was opening slowly.

 

  “They never should have gotten rid of me,” Flynn said smugly. They were still waiting for the enormous door to open up and Flynn kept on grinning at them. Alan responded with an irritated smile. For the first time now Alan realized that it was going to be a very long evening.

 

  “Now that is a big door,” Flynn exclaimed.

 

  “Shut up,” Alan whispered. Finally the opening became large enough for them to move in and Flynn pushed Lora ahead. He followed her and Alan ran inside as well. They headed downstairs; then they stopped in unison when a security guard came in sight. It was too late to run or hide: the three of them proceeded downstairs. Flynn and Alan looked at each other and Lora gave the guard a smile.

 

  “Hi,” she said. The guard was walking upstairs.

 

  “Hi,” he responded pleasantly. “Working late?”

 

  “Yeah,” Lora sighed. Alan flashed his brightest smile; behind him Flynn was keeping a low profile.

 

  “Okay, come here,” Lora told Alan once the guard disappeared. “You are going to get to my terminal and I am going to take him to your office upstairs.”

 

  Alan nodded; he liked the idea of working alone. They had come to find evidence and help Flynn to reclaim his softwares, but Alan was certain that had they tried actually working together, they would have ended up arguing and accomplishing nothing.

 

  “Don’t fall asleep,” Flynn told Alan, “If and when I activate your Tron program, you’re only gonna have a few minutes to use it before Dillinger catches the break in security, all right?”

 

  “Uh-huh,” Alan said and started toward the laser bay. Lora reached after him and touched his arm. Alan turned back.

 

  “As long as we stay off the top floor, Dillinger will never know we’ve been in here,” she said. Alan nodded.

 

  “Good luck, hot shot,” he told Flynn. Flynn gave him a brief smile and then he left with Lora.

 

  Alan was walking quickly. He crossed the empty server room. The laser bay looked like a giant metal labyrinth with its white structure, ladders and platforms. It was not shut down, not really: the lights were on and the machines were whirring… breathing at this late hour. Alan climbed up on a ladder quickly, but cautiously. He would say he was looking for Lora, had he met a technician or anybody else here. But he was alone with the machines. He stopped at Lora’s terminal. Alan took off his jacket and hanged it, and then he sat down. He turned the computer on and logged in with his own password. He was typing the same request he had tried earlier that day, before he had been summoned to Dillinger’s office.

 

  REQUEST: MASTER CONTROL PROGRAM

                    RELEASE TRON JA 307020…

                    I HAVE PRIORITY ACCESS 7

 

  Alan waited; he expected the same negative answer he had gotten a few hours before. After that he would just wait until the message would change, if ever, upon Flynn’s tampering. He leaned back in the chair and rubbed his eyes.

 

  YOU SHOULDN’T HAVE COME BACK BRADLEY

 

  Alan was staring at the screen in disbelief. He was jeopardizing his career, his future for Kevin Flynn and yet the other programmer’s first deed after getting to Alan’s terminal upstairs was to pull a prank on Alan.

 

  “This is unbelievable,” he said loudly. He let out a long sigh and leaned back once more. With Lora next to him Flynn would not be able to play around for long and soon he, Alan should see the result of his work. He would just have to wait. Machines were whirring, one right behind him, but Alan was exhausted and he did not turn around. He had promised them that he would not fall asleep.

 

  Alan saw a flash of light and he felt his own body freezing in the chair. He could not move anymore; the view of the laser bay became blurry and then it disappeared.

 

  He was falling.

 


	2. Chapter 2

  Alan Bradley opened his eyes. He was standing in the middle of a circle, in some dark room. Disoriented, he stirred. He might have dozed off in the chair at Lora’s workstation, he thought, and he was probably dreaming now. Or he might have fallen, hitting his head; Alan was looking for an explanation as a weird scene was unfolding around him.

 

  He looked down. His khaki pants and shirt was gone; he was wearing a skin-tight attire, accompanied by some padding around his lower arms and shoulders.

 

  “Where are my pants,” he whispered. Light lines were running along the sleeves of his costume, like a distinctive pattern. _Circuits_ , Alan thought and he blinked. He must have lost his glasses at one point, yet his vision appeared to be clear; not as if he had gained a clear eyesight which he had never had, but as if he were watching a screen from close – as if there were no heights and depths surrounding him. He was wearing a tunic-like wrap above the suit, gloves and some hat or helmet; Alan did not get to inspect it closely. There were people coming; if they were people, in those bulky suits, lit by red circuitry. He must have hit his head real bad, Alan was thinking. They suddenly stopped and Alan heard them whispering nervously; he though he heard the name ‘Tron’ dropped.

 

  “Hey,” Alan said. The closest one, with a staff in his hand stepped ahead somewhat hesitantly.

 

  “Move, program,” he said. They started to surround him slowly, with their staffs raised as if they were expecting Alan to start a fight. Confused, he moved, waiting to be awakened from the dream. They walked through a gate and entered a maze of corridors.

 

  “Video game unit 18,” one of the guards said. A small door opened on the wall they were walking along. “In here, program.”

 

  Alan turned around, ready with a sharp response; he felt an unexpected tug and he was inside a small cell before he could have spoken. The guards seemed to be relieved as the door closed and Alan stayed trapped inside.

 

  “You were quick,” he heard a familiar voice from behind. Alan turned around and saw another prisoner in the adjacent cell. There was a transparent wall separating them, but Alan saw and heard him clearly. The prisoner was wearing a suit and helmet similar to Alan’s, yet he recognized his co-worker immediately.

 

  “Roy!” he exclaimed. The other prisoner jumped on his feet and leaned close to the energy wall between the cells.

 

  “Where did you hear that name?” he asked excitedly.

 

  “Well, that’s your name, isn’t it?” Alan asked, irritated. Now he felt certain again that he was the victim of some complex prank, even he could not even imagine why Roy had gotten on board with that at the first place.

 

  “The name of my User,” the prisoner said. “How did you know?”

 

  Alan was staring at him silently, still debating between his options, whether to tell his co-worker, that he would never get as much as a mouthful from Alan’s popcorn for this, or to roll with the events. It was absurd, yet too real in an unexplainable way – the whole experience was not alike a dream Alan had ever had and it was way too elaborate for a prank. And if it was none of those, if this was reality, then he, Alan was in very big trouble.

 

  “Where am I?” he asked. The prisoner was looking at him curiously and Alan remembered the words he had been welcomed in the cell; the prisoner had mistaken him for somebody earlier.

 

  “You’re a…,” the other one started and took a step in his small cell, “guest of the Master Control Program.”

 

  He was smiling at Alan’s shocked expression.

 

  “They’re going to make you play video games.”

 

  Alan gave him a dubious look.

 

  “I left my quarters in my wallet,” he said. The other prisoner laughed incredulously.

 

  “I’m Ram,” he said. “What’s your name?”

 

  Alan introduced himself, waiting for the sign of recognition, but he noticed none.

 

  “What are we doing here?” he asked. Ram leaned against the wall once more.

 

  “You believe in the Users, don’t you?” he asked. “That’s what you’re doing here. Master Control Program’s been snapping up all us programs who believe. If he thinks you’re useful, he takes over all your functions, so he gets bigger. If he can’t use you, he sends you down here to the Game Grid to get the bits blasted out of you. They’ll train you for the games, but…”

 

  Ram stopped, glancing at Alan, who was looking at him with his hands on his hips. Alan was not entirely sure about his own expression, but there had been a long day behind him with his access revoked, then he had jumped into a break-in and as he was standing in this cell, hearing this story, he did not quite see the end of it. He would not have been surprised to learn that there was some frustration showing on his face.

 

  A guard, that was standing on the top of Alan’s cell, banged the transparent floor with his staff.

 

  “Move out!” the guard yelled. “This way.”

 

  They both exited their cells and Alan saw two guards escorting Ram away. He turned to the guards that came for him.

 

  “I gotta to see the guy in charge,” he said adamantly in his most serious ‘I want to talk to the manager’ voice.

 

  “You will,” one of the guards responded. There were other people as well in similar grey suits and blue circuits. Alan was not quite ready to consider them anything else, but people yet, but since no matter how many times he blinked or tried to trick himself any other way to wake up, he had to consider the possibility that this was real… even if the situation was something new, not the reality he had used to know. He had been sitting at Lora’s workstation, with his back to the deactivated Shiva laser; and there had been nobody around to turn the equipment on. He could not quite wrap his mind around the information he had heard from Ram; it would have meant for him to believe that the Master Control Program was a self-aware AI, capable to derail and rectify other programs – or activate a digitizing laser.

 

  Their group entered a large stadium. It was a complex structure with no ceiling and with many sub-levels. It was different from anything Alan had ever seen before in his life: the laws of physics and gravity seemed not to work here. It was pure energy, pulsing in the walls and the floors; it was mathematics in the works – it was a computer from the inside. Alan gasped.

 

  The guards had them lined up on the top level. They waited, and Alan could not help, but noticed the looks that many of the prisoners and the guards were giving him. There were whispers and Alan heard his Tron program’s name again. The guards that were standing the closest to him, pulled back.

 

  “Look, operative,” one guard exclaimed, pointing at the enormous aircraft hovering above the stadium. “Command program Sark’s carrier is approaching. He will explain the training procedures.”

 

  The rest of the people in the line appeared to be worried, intimidated. Up there the aircraft came to a stop. Somebody began to speak – the carrier was hovering up there and they could not see the Commander, but the voice was strong and clear.

 

  “Greetings. The Master Control Program has chosen you to serve your system on the Game Grid. Those of you, who continue to profess a belief in the Users, will receive the standard substandard training, which will result in your eventual elimination. Those of you, who renounce this superstitious and hysterical belief, will be eligible to join the warrior elite of the MCP. You will each receive an identity disc. Everything you do or learn will be imprinted on this disc. If you lose your disc or fail to follow commands, you will be subject to immediate deresolution. That would be all.”

 

  They stood there in a stunned silence.

 

  “Move out,” a guard instructed them and they started. Alan glanced down at a couple of programs fighting on a sub-level. There were four red circuited warriors against one blue. Despite of the overwhelming odds, the blue program was taking out the enemy quickly and efficiently. Alan tapped on the shoulder of the program walking ahead of him.

 

  “Hey,” he said and pointed at the blue program down there. “Who’s that guy?”

 

  The conscript looked at him as if he was trying to figure whether Alan was testing him.

 

  “That’s Tron, like you,” he said. “He fights for the Users.”

 


	3. Chapter 3

  Ram was spinning his disc; the disc was shining with a cyan hue and it was making a low, whirring sound, which reminded Alan of the whizz of a computer.

 

  “That’s pretty good,” Alan said. He was back in his cell and he was rather preoccupied. He began to believe that he was indeed inside of a machine; the consequences felt staggering. The Shiva laser was working; this would bring international fame and recognition to Lora and Gibbs. And the world inside of the computer; after careful research, he, Alan could write a book and open a door for the further exploration of the Grid.

 

  “Watch this. You’ve got to be good, if you want to survive,” Ram replied. That statement brought Alan back to reality; in his mind he was already preparing his speech he would give when accepting the Turing Award next year. Ram was right: to receive any kind of prize or return to home he would first have to live through this.

 

  “Hey, Ram,” he said. “What were you, you know, before…”

 

  “I was an actuarial program. Worked for a big insurance company. It really gives you a great feeling, helping folks plan for their future needs,” Ram replied, smiling. That confirmed Alan’s previous suspicion – his co-worker, Roy Kleinberg had created Ram and that could have been behind their resemblance. The realization gave Alan an idea, which he could not quite spell out. He had not gotten a close look of Tron earlier on the Game Grid, yet… But the unformed idea was somehow disturbing and Alan discarded it.

 

  “Of course, if you think of the payments as an annuity over the years, the cost is really quite minimal,” Ram finished with a smile.

 

  “Yeah, that’s great,” Alan replied. He was making mental notes: Ram had an understanding of years, money and what savings meant for people. After writing a book about the Grid, Alan was thinking, he could give lectures about his experiences at universities. They could travel together with Lora and she could talk about her experiments with the laser and the ideas behind digitizing objects.

 

  “How about yourself?” Ram asked, smiling.

 

  “Oh, I don’t remember too much,” Alan replied hesitantly. He was in enough trouble already and somehow he felt safer not to reveal the truth yet.

 

  “Sure, a little disorientation,” Ram nodded. “That’s normal in transport, it will come back to you.”

 

  Alan blinked. That was something that Roy would have told him, a word of encouragement in the middle of a complex project, when all the other programmers would be rushing to look after their own projects – out of mere kindness. A guard tapped the ceiling with his staff, before Alan could have responded and the doors of the cells opened.

 

  “Good luck, Alanbradley,” Ram said before he exited his own cell and was escorted away. Other guards came for Alan; he thought they would show him again their weird bikes, but they went to a different field instead. Soon he found himself in the middle of a glowing circle, the equivalent of a jai alai field, with a cesta in his hand. His opponent, that was wearing the tunic of new conscripts as well, was standing on the other side of the field, in a similar circle. A ball appeared up there and fell into the other program’s cesta.

 

  “You think you’re gonna wipe me out, don’t you?” the other conscript asked nervously. Alan just noticed that the other one was scared; as if he thought he was facing a powerful opponent, as if he mistook Alan for somebody experienced in this game.

 

  “No,” Alan replied, indignant at the very suggestion. His opponent threw the ball forcefully; the ball rebounded from the ceiling and came down at the circle where Alan was standing. Alan moved after the ball, too late, too slowly; the ball hit one of the circles, which disappeared immediately. Alan jumped to avoid the fall; he didn’t know what was going to happen, had he fallen into the abyss, but he did not want to take the chance. He looked down. Was this the MCP’s idea, to bring him here with the laser, show him his own power and then kill him? Suddenly it did not seem to be impossible; there would be no sign of his, Alan’s disappearance and seeing the computer from the inside for the first time, Alan was quite certain that Flynn would not be able to hack the system from the other workstation. And if Flynn could not release Tron, then their plan would fail – Flynn and Lora would have to leave the building eventually, with or without Alan, and the MCP would notify Dillinger about the break in at the beginning of the next working day. Lora would get fired and Alan’s name would be on the missing people’s list forever.

 

  He threw the ball back with sudden anger. The other program made a run for it and missed; a ring disintegrated in his circle as well. Alan stopped. He was doing exactly what the MCP wanted; he was being played. He dropped the ball that had returned to him after the successful shot. Suddenly he remembered what Gibbs had told him once; that the Master Control Program had been a chess program originally. A chess program would not be able to make its move if the other player was idle.

 

  “I’m not playing,” he declared. The other conscript was standing on the other side with terrified expression on his face; but the ball was gone and he could not proceed. Another ball appeared up there and fell towards Alan’s cesta. He stepped away and the second ball fell into the deep. An angry voice filled the Game Grid.

 

  “Play the game!”

 

  “No.” Alan replied calmly. It was Commander Sark above them and Alan just recognized his voice – it was Edward Dillinger. Just now Alan Bradley realized that the ENCOM CEO knew about the machinations of the MCP; that the program could be a fully operative AI, but was not acting alone.

 

  “Play it!”

 

  “No,” he repeated.

 

  “You will regret this,” Sark promised. Alan felt scared for a moment, that the commander would throw both of them into the abyss. Instead of that the lights turned on and guards entered the room. Both conscripts were escorted out from the jai alai field.

 

  Alan lost sight of the other program soon, as the two guards led him into another area.

 

  “This is the holding area for the light cycles,” one of them announced. “Wait here.”

 

  Alan was composed, now that he figured out a way to handle the situation. That calmness disappeared in a moment when he looked at the programs in the holding area and he almost cried out from the surprise.

 

  “Hey, Alanbradley!” Ram, who was one of the conscripts standing at the wall, yelled at him happily. “You made it!”

 

  Alan was staring at the other program in the room; the prisoner was glaring back at him, alarmed as well.

 

  “Who are you?” the program asked. Alan was staring at him, speechless. The program looked and sounded exactly the same as him, only the program was not wearing the tunic of new conscripts. There was a bright, blue T symbol on the program’s chest. Alan looked down; under the tunic he wore a simple, blue vertical line at the same place. A line – or the number one… Alan-One, his login name into the computer.

 

  “He was disoriented in transport, Tron,” Ram said, confirming the program’s identity to Alan. Three other programs entered the room, they were wearing the red circuitry of the MCP’s elite. They lined up against the opposite wall. Alan stumbled to his spot next to Tron. He knew that he had only moments to form an alliance with his own program, without revealing himself.

 

  “Who are you?” Tron insisted.

 

  “I am another program of Alan-One,” he replied and Tron frowned at the name. “My User wants me to go after the MCP.”

 

  Tron straightened himself proudly.

 

  “He wants me to do that too,” he said.

 

  “I know,” Alan confirmed. Tron looked at him intently, and his expression made Alan wonder; had he, Alan looked at Dillinger like this? Because in that case Alan could understand why Dillinger had seen him as an actual threat to his own plans.

 

  “Prepare to transport to Light Cycle Grid,” a female voice announced. Alan felt the same electric buzz that had filled his body when he had been digitized; the waiting room disappeared and in the next moment they were on the Grid.  


	4. Chapter 4

  The Light Cycle Grid was an enormous arena; the glowing grid pattern of the floor reached far, seemingly endless. Alan could not see the wall on the other side; as he glanced up, he saw the dark, starless sky of the system. Confused, he shook his head. Just a moment before they were all standing in the small waiting room and he did not remember coming down here.

 

  “We have transport,” the female voice said. Alan blinked. Next to him Ram and Tron appeared suddenly.

 

  “Ok,” he mumbled. Above the Grid Recognizers were circling and Sark’s carrier ship. Recognizers… Alan knew these aircrafts, he had seen them not long before in Flynn’s Arcade, on the screen of a gaming machine. This was one of Kevin Flynn’s video games, he realized, and they were players in the game.

 

  Three flowing bars materialized in front of them. This was familiar from the short training; Alan reached for it and he felt the buzz of electricity. A bike appeared around him, a round shape – another familiar design from Flynn’s Arcade. Once the light cycle was complete, he was sitting in an enclosed cabin, leaned forward, looking out through the windshield. On the other side of the Arena the three bikes of their opponents started already.

 

  Ram and Tron sped up and Alan followed suit; he was sitting on a bike for the first time in his life. But it was much rather a game, a video game played with sticks and buttons – and Alan was not the worst player, even if he would not spend much of his free time with games.

 

  “This is Gold-One to Gold-Two and Three,” Alan heard Tron’s voice… his own voice from the communicator. “Split up. Take them one on one.”

 

  Their bikes separated. Alan was fumbling with the buttons; he would have to remember later, when he would be working on his book. When he looked up he saw that Tron and Ram were far away from him. There was a golden light ribbon behind Tron’s bike and a red one was following Ram’s: the ribbons remained behind and created a maze of solid walls, just as the blue ribbons of the enemy vehicles. Tron was closely followed by a blue unit; it was a high speed chase and Tron was changing directions very rapidly. He was trying to force the enemy against the ribbon, Alan realized, without knowing what would happen upon an impact. He got the answer a few seconds later, when Tron drove the blue bike into the wall of the Arena. There was an explosion and the blue bike disappeared as the program was deleted.

 

  Alan was staring numbly. He had no way of knowing if that would happen to him as well, but he had no illusions. For the first time now he understood that the MCP had brought him down here to die. Of course the MCP could have reprogrammed the Shiva laser and simply shot him dead while sitting at the terminal or had the guards kill him upon arrival. But the program had chosen the slower way for that, so that he, a User would actually see the Master Control Program’s power before expiring.

 

  With a sudden turn he got away from the blue unit that was chasing him. He got to get out the game, he reminded himself, the MCP had been created to interact with a second player. He looked at the wall of the Arena, where the previous explosion opened up a large crack. The opening was sizeable, enough for a bike to escape. Alan turned his bike into that direction. The blue unit was still chasing him, left behind just a few feet. Alan saw that Tron and Ram were not following him; he understood it suddenly that programs might not see the fissure on the wall as an escape route or they might not see it at all.

 

  “Gold-Three to Gold-Two and One,” he spoke into the communicator. “I’m getting out of here right now and you guys are invited.”

 

  “Got it,” Ram confirmed. Alan saw a flash on his right hand side: the blue bike, what was catching up with him, hit the gold light ribbon that Tron had left behind previously. He sighed. He knew that he should not think of them as people… Or should he? His bike left the Light Cycle Grid and he had no time left to ponder about the question.

 

  Much to his relief he saw the other two gold units joining him soon.

 

  “Greetings, programs,” he said with a smile.

 

  “Video game warriors escaping Game Grid,” the distant female voice announced. “This is an illegal exit. You must return to Game Grid. Repeat. This is an illegal exit. You must return to Game Grid.”

 

  “Those demons are coming down,” Ram said. The Recognizers were descending on them; the fugitives successfully escaped when they entered a tunnel, but the next hangar was full of toylike tanks, which came to life as the three bikes disturbed the space. He would have a few words to Kevin Flynn later, Alan Bradley was thinking, about his imagination regarding video games – but for now he just made a sudden turn with his bike to avoid a rolling tank.

 

  A long chase started; the tanks were following them and close explosions shook the ground after each missile fired. They were making their way through the dark system; it had the basic appearance of a canyon. At one point there was a larger detonation: Alan Bradley glanced back and saw one of the tanks fallen and destroyed in a deep ravine.

 

  They were running undisturbed for a while when they stopped. The bikes disappeared and retracted into the handlebars. This part of the system was different from the dark desert they had left behind: the basic tone of the surroundings was blue and there was energy flowing in the structures. The area appeared to be farther from the MCP’s domain – less drained.

 

  “On the other side of the screen, it all looks so easy,” mumbled Alan. Tron looked at him suspiciously.

 

  They walked. Just in a few minutes they reached an upper out-thrust. An unexpected view opened up for them – at least it was unexpected for Alan, who had only seen the MCP’s prison and the Arena from close before. It was the blue desert at their feet and a city in the distance; or Alan believed it to be a city, a tower and the small structures around it. A beam of light hung between the tower and the black sky.

 

  “Look at that,” Ram said.

 

  “So, what do we do now?” Alan asked. “How do we get to the Master Control Program?”

 

  “We can’t get to the MCP without the help of my User,” Tron said. “I have to get to that Input/Output tower. Communicate with him.”

 

  The security program jumped down from their perch. Alan was looking after him numbly. He was supposed to be sitting at his terminal, waiting for Flynn, who was working upstairs, to release Tron. He was supposed to download the updated data on his program’s disc; but he was here, in the system – Tron would get to the tower to establish connection, and there would be nobody to give him the information. They were going to fail, Alan realized; how was he supposed to give the update to Tron now? He could not even reveal his true identity to these programs. He had seen security programs deleting harmless files that they had recognized as threat before – and Alan surely did not want to find out if he could put down his program in a possible fight.

 

  He was thinking heavily as he followed Tron. There was something down there in the cave, something that reminded Alan of a pool – except there was not supposed to be water inside of the computer.

 

  “That is just what I need right now,” Ram said cheerfully. The bottom of the cave was filled by some shining, clear liquid. Alan saw the other two reaching out eagerly and drinking from the pool; their circuitry started to glow with a more intense light immediately. Alan knelt down and followed their example. The effect of drinking the liquid energy was the same as if he would have taken a day off from work, a day off with a long sleep and a good meal.

 

  “Nice,” Tron said and he laughed.

 

  “My friends, my fellow conscripts,” Ram announced solemnly. “We have scored. I feel so much better.”

 

  Ram offered Alan his disc, filled with energy. Alan looked down at the disc and he got an idea. He was holding the disc in his hands and he looked at Tron on the other side of the pool. The program looked back; his circuits were pulsing with a renewed light and he seemed to be fresher now. As he was lying on his side, his eyes met with Alan’s stare.

 

  “Alan-One,” the program whispered. Alan was looking at him quietly. Suddenly the program moved and jumped on his feet. A moment later Alan and Ram heard the sound that prompted that move: the tanks were coming.

 

  “Let’s go,” Tron said.

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

  They were on the run again. The enemy was close, Alan sensed that much from the urgency, even if they could not see tanks or Recognizers around. The dark land was deserted; there was a bridge ahead, after which they would enter another canyon. That route promised relative safety, to be hidden from the searching eyes.

 

  It was close; Tron’s bike was on the bridge already and Alan was following closely, with Ram behind him. Alan did not see the explosion; the bridge ahead disappeared and an invisible force lifted him up in the air. His bike deactivated and he was thrown back hard against the ground, with chunks of debris falling down around him. Alan Bradley had never been in a traffic accident before, but he would imagine that like this; his whole body was aching and his vision was blurry. Then everything fell silent and he slowly moved. Contrary to an accident in a real world, instead of exchanging information Alan was expecting a different aftermath and he had no intention of waiting for the Reds to arrive and inspect the ruins.

 

  He turned and he saw Ram’s lifeless body lying a few feet away. Alan jumped to his feet.

 

  “Ram!” he said. He could hear the roar of an approaching tank and he kept his voice low. “Ram!”

 

  Ram did not move. Alan rushed there and turned him on his back. Ram was unconscious and Alan had no time to further determine his condition.

 

  “Come on,” he panted. He moved and he dragged Ram with him. “We have to get out of here.”

 

  There was a small cavern, barely more than a fissure on the wall. Just as he reached there and tucked Ram inside, a tank broke through the shallow barrier of debris. The vehicle marched across the accident site, followed by another war machine. They looked no more; seemingly certain about the conscripts’ demise.

 

  Alan waited. He had not seen Tron escaping after the ambush; the security program could have very well fallen from the bridge. But Alan was hopeful: that program was the best he had ever created. If anybody, Tron could have survived the explosion – he could have made it to the canyon.

 

  The tanks left. Alan sighed and he turned back to Ram.

 

  “Hang in there,” he said. Ram did not look well; he had no visible injuries, but his circuitry was fading. Ram slowly opened his eyes. “Are you okay?”

 

  Ram let out a painful sigh. Alan knelt down next to him.

 

  “We’ll get you fixed up, hang on,” he said. But he was not all that sure about that; how would he find help on time? He did not even know the world waiting outside.

 

  “Listen,” Ram whispered. He appeared to be in a lot of pain. He reached out and took Alan’s hand. “Help Tron.”

 

  “I need your help in that,” Alan said. Ram was dying; Alan knew that from the program’s blinking circuitry and through their hands held. Had he been sitting at the terminal, Alan was thinking desperately, he would be able to save Ram, he could fix the damage in his codes. Ram closed his eyes peacefully. Alan looked down at their hands, through which he could feel the lapse of energy. The energy that was flowing in his own circuitry… Alan closed his eyes as well and he focused. This was not real, he reminded himself, not the way he understood reality. He felt the electricity buzzing in his own circuits and he willed that power to flow through their connected hands. Alan had no way of knowing if it would work, yet he had to try anyway – not just because he did not want Ram to die, but because he was supposed to be a User. And if being a User, a creator of this place meant anything, that must have meant to be able to save lives; that was what Alan believed.

 

  He opened his eyes and he saw that Ram was looking at him with the mixture of shock and awe. The program’s circuits were back to their usual strength and luminosity.

 

  “User, my User… Are you a User?” Ram asked. Alan nodded with an uncertain smile. Ram moved and they both stood up. Ram was staring at him with a new look and Alan expected awkwardness or even hostility – instead he got dozens of excited questions. He gave his best answers anyway, while he was silently wondering, whether the Master Control Program had expected him to have any special powers in here or him to live long enough to explore those capabilities.

 

  “I don’t know if Tron survived,” he told Ram once all the questions were answered. “Or how do we find him if he did.”

 

  “He is on the way to the I/O Tower now,” Ram stated with no doubt. Once again he was back to his hopeful self; he rose and he pointed at the city hidden behind the canyon walls.

 

  “To get in touch with me,” Alan said. “But I am here and he is walking into a trap.”

 

  He knew that was true: for Sark he, Alan, had never been a real opponent, not the way Tron had been a challenge for the Reds. With Alan presumed dead, the forces of the MCP would be after Tron. He had to stop Tron, Alan realized: there was no point to approach the tower. He, the User was here and while he was not quite certain how to deliver the new data to his program from the inside, the I/O tower was a dead end.

 

  “Then that’s what we do,” Ram said, with his baton in his hands already.

 

  The remaining part of the journey was eventless, with no enemy units in sight. Their bikes crossed the wasteland at high speed. As they got closer to the city, there would be more light and vehicles. They got to the center without interruption, where they collapsed their bikes. Alan looked around with renewed interest. There were programs in different shapes and sizes all around the place. For Alan, who had mostly seen human-looking units in the training complex, it was quite a surprise to see sentient beings wandering with the appearance of an electric fuse or a roll of wires.

 

  “What are those?” he asked Ram, pointing at a group of people. Ram pulled his arm down to avoid being noticed.

 

  “Those are data pushers,” Ram answered. “Control programs.”

 

  They walked. Alan kept on looking around and for the first time now he wished that Lora and Flynn to be here and see this. When he looked back, he saw Ram engaged in a conversation with two female programs that were sitting on a bench casually. Alan turned back to the city view. He wished Lora could see this one day; not like him, not being brought against her will, but coming in a safe manner. She would have appreciated it; the two of them shared a passion about number, mathematics, a science most imagined as abstract and wearisome. But it was not like that; it was logic. It was to the point, the way real life was sometimes not… it was life. Maybe not flesh and blood life, but sentient life, for what people had been looking for so long.

 

  Ram joined him with hurried steps.

 

  “The tower is this way,” he said. They started.

 

 


	6. Chapter 6

  They saw guards running; in one moment everything was serene, boring and in the blink of an eye there were Reds everywhere, rushing into the direction of the tower. Ram looked back at Alan and they began to run. Without words they knew for whom the guards were going and that they had to make it to the tower before the enemy units.

 

  Tanks were arriving; nobody paid any heed to the two of them, and for that they made it to the tower unobstructed. They barely crossed the open gate when it locked shut: a solid energy wall emerged and closed the access. Alan let out a sigh of relief.

 

  “There they are!” Ram exclaimed, pointing at three figures inside the sanctuary. The program started in a hurry and Alan followed him. There was a large, non-human form on the top of a pedestal and two others standing; just as they got closed did Alan recognize Tron in the company of… Lora? Alan started rushing once more, convinced that Lora had gone down to the laser bay to check up on Alan, and the MCP had gotten her as well.

 

  “You are alive!” Tron said with brightened face. Ram rushed to them and they exchanged handshakes. Alan slowed down. There was no recognition on Lora’s face as she was looking at him. She was wearing a tight dress and a cap, with the pattern of blue circuits. Alan sensed suddenly that he was not facing Lora Baines, but rather a program that belonged to her. Just as he got there and opened his lips to greet them, his eyes met the inquisitive stare of Walter Gibbs. The elderly programmer’s counterpart was atop the pedestal, fused with something that resembled to a sphinx. Inside of this temple-like tower he reminded Alan of some sort of priest or religious dignitary.

 

  “My name is Ram,” he heard Ram introducing himself. “And this is…”

 

  “He is a User,” the sphinx stated unerringly.

 

  “Dumont!” she exclaimed. Tron stopped. They all looked at Alan.

 

  “It’s the truth,” Ram said. “He saved me.”

 

  The tower shook. There were guards gathering and a giant tank right outside the closed gate. They were breaking in; the building shook once more from an energy blast.

 

  “I’ve come to communicate with my User,” Tron said, slowly and confused, looking at Alan.

 

  “He is your User, program,” Dumont said without a doubt. Tron did not reply, he was just looking at Alan with silent awe.

 

  “Then everything you’ve done is according to a plan, right?” she asked. The gate shook once more; the enemy was almost inside.

 

  “Off you go,” Dumont said.

 

  “I don’t understand,” Tron said, turning at the tower guardian. “My User’s information… How would I get it now?”

 

  “You’ll have to figure out another way,” Dumont replied.

 

  “You have to come with us,” she insisted. But there was no time left; after a hurried farewell a small door opened up in the back, allowing the four of them to escape and then it closed shut behind them.

 

  They were on the run again; there was no time for words, but Tron and his female companion were heading into a specific direction; Alan and Ram followed them. Behind them the Red units entered the Input/Output tower. They both felt that they had only a very short time left to get away before the guards would be after them.

 

  The hangar was empty when they arrived. Yori – Alan had learned her name while on the run – seemed to be familiar with the workshop. Up there a delicate aircraft was hanging mid-air. They followed her instructions and soon an elevator took them up to the ship.

 

  “If I can just get us on the scanning transport beam,” she said, “This solar sailer simulation will take us across the game sea, out of this domain, back into the central computer.”

 

 They just boarded when voices and the sound of rushing footsteps filled the hangar; the enemy was upon them. Yori ran to the control panel and started the ship with an expert hand – meanwhile the other three kept the guards away from the sailer. A transport beam lit up, connected to the ship and the aircraft came to life. Alan saw Tron and Ram kicking down Red units that were trying to climb on board. He turned and found himself facing a guard. The guard threw his baton down and jumped into the deep without a fight. Alan stared after him dumbfounded, slowly realizing that the Red must have mistaken him for Tron.

 

  The ship started; it sailed out from the hangar rapidly and elegantly. Programs on the ground were looking at them, at the departing aircraft. The sailer was moving fast, yet not fast enough. Shark’s warship emerged above the hangar, following them, ready to descend and crush the smaller vehicle. Yori was working on the control panel; her face was calm and focused. Just before the command ship could have reached them, the solar sailer shot out and sped away along the transport beam.

 

  Alan was looking at the digital world underneath. It was breathtaking; a whole landscape with fields, mountains and great, blue plains. He remembered Yori’s words: they were on the way to the central computer. Tron would have come this way after receiving the update from Alan, a step they had skipped. Now he, Alan, had to find a way to access Tron’s disc and enter the information manually. He turned and looked at his program. He saw that Tron was eyeing him as well from the other side of the ship, while Yori and Ram shared a relieved embrace after the successful escape. The awe was still on Tron’s face, but there was something else too. Worry? Fear? Alan could not tell and for now he had other things to worry about. He saw discs in the work, used in a fight, but he had no idea how to access one here, inside of the computer, let alone entering information into it.

 

  The sky turned dark gradually and the landscape changed. They were travelling above the sea now. Soon the time would run out, Alan Bradley was thinking, and he would have to ask Tron to hand his disc to him. For now his program was keeping watch, carefully avoiding looking at Alan.

 

  The solar sailer shook and slowed down so suddenly that Yori cried out. Ram and Alan, that were resting, jumped to their feet.

 

  “What’s happening?” Ram demanded. Tron rushed to Yori, who leant above the control panel once more.

 

  “Power surge from the MCP,” Yori replied.

 

  “We have to get off this beam,” Tron said. They were barely moving now and the ship was shaking violently. They would be delayed long enough for the command ship to get them, Alan was thinking, unless the sailer would get destroyed before on the burnt out circuit.

 

  “I can’t,” Yori said. The control panel was blinking red. “There isn’t another junction for seven or eight nanoseconds.”

 

  Those words hit Alan Bradley; this was the first occasion he got a hint about the different timekeeping of the computer and for a moment a dark premonition occupied his mind. But there was no time to wonder; he was looking around frantically.

 

  “There is another beam!” Ram exclaimed.

 

  “It’s too far,” she said. Alan shrugged. It was as if he were in his own world and they were trapped in an elevator, waiting to be saved. In a normal situation he would be asking people to stay calm and let the women and elderly sit on the floor while waiting for the rescue. He would try to keep things orderly, but also keep a low profile in the meantime. Here there was nobody coming to save them; if anybody, he, Alan had the power to get them out from here, he, or nobody else.

 

  He ran ahead. The bright light of the power surge was blinding; he looked down anyway. Alan leaned as close as he could and reached out. He felt the beam connecting to his arm; while the intense energy would have erased a program on the spot, Alan only sensed the heat. With his other arm he reached out towards the other beam.

 

  “He’s creating a junction!” Ram yelled back at Yori and Tron. Alan closed his eyes at the shining. He felt the solar sailer changing course, lifting up and moving to the other beam. Once settled, the aircraft sped up and continued her journey at the central computer. Alan slowly lost consciousness.

 

 

 


	7. Chapter 7

  Alan opened his eyes. He was lying in a dark room; he was alone with the sound of the wind that came from outside. Alan sighed. He knew all so well that the previous few hours, the vivid trip into the computer, could not be real. He turned in the bed, closing his eyes once more. He was listening to the sound and slowly he recognized the whirring of a machine. Alan sat up suddenly. He looked down at his hands; his skin was wrinkled. He reached up and touched his own face, only to recognize the features of an aged man.

 

  He was dreaming, he realized. In the dream he knew that he and his companions had defeated the Master Control Program long time before, but he had been trapped in the system nevertheless. Alan looked around and he saw that the digital world had changed, had gotten upgraded throughout the years. The room was more detailed than structures had been before, around the time of his initial arrival to the Grid.

 

  The door opened and Alan looked up. His heart skipped a beat when he saw the familiar face.

 

  “Lora!” he cried out in relief. Alan could not think of an explanation to her appearance, but now, that Lora was here, everything would be fine; they would figure something out. She looked at him quietly. Something was wrong here and it took Alan a minute to figure the reason behind his growing terror. Her face was smooth and youthful; these were the features of the young Lora Baines – and her ever unchanging creature. Yori – Alan wanted to say, but he stayed silent. She was wearing a long gown and her hair was piled high. It was the look of a queen, Alan thought, the spouse of a User in the system.

  
  “He is here,” Yori said. Alan stood up and she came to him with a black robe. And in the dream Alan Bradley remembered; that after the fall of the MCP they had been unsuccessfully trying to find a wait out for him, he and his program companions. Yori helped him into the robe and arranged the garment. Alan stood wordlessly. Desperately trying to wake up, he remembered of the cycles of hopelessness and how it had poisoned life for him.

 

  Yori stepped in front of him and took his face in between her hands. There was sorrow in her eyes – she felt for him. For long he could refuse that caring, for it was wrong for him to accept; but his human soul could not take the centuries of loneliness, the knowledge that he would never return home. But Yori would come, leaving Tron, saying she would have left anyway…  And Alan would give in to her genuine caring and goodness as he had once given in for Lora Baines. He would come to terms with his fate and would become a benevolent leader to ensure that no tyrant would rise again to endanger the freedom on the Grid.

 

  She pulled back and Alan moved. He walked out and crossed the next room. He opened the door and stepped out. The constant light of the system welcomed him outside. Farther away a lonely figure was waiting, squatted. Alan walked to him and the program stood up. He was wearing a hooded cape and he had a bag with him with data from all around the system – the data that the User had requested. Sending him out to those expeditions sounded so much better than exile. Alan stopped and the program pulled his hood back, revealing his tired face – the face of the young Alan Bradley.

 

  He woke up with a wild twitch. It took him moments until his mind cleared up after the nightmare. It was nauseating; it felt like more than a dream… almost like a premonition.

 

  “Did we make it?” he asked. He was lying on his back on the board of the sailer. Yori, Ram and Tron were sitting around him; from their relaxed pose and smug smiles Alan learned the answer already.

 

  “How did you do that?” Ram asked.

 

  “A beam of energy can always be diverted,” Alan replied. He saw Yori nodding at the other two programs and Alan knew that he passed the final test in their eyes.

 

  The sailer crossed the sky in a fast pace and he were yet to find out how to put the missing information on Tron’s disc. The program knew that the request was coming and Tron offered him the disc unceremoniously. Alan was holding the disc in hand, still thinking about the challenge. The surface of the disc was smooth, without openings or cracks – there was no indication of how to open an interface.

 

  He placed his hand on the disc and focused. He wished the disc to open; almost instantly he felt it warming up under his touch. The disc lit up and a three-dimensional virtual interface appeared above it. Yori let out a gasp; Ram and Tron were quiet. Alan looked at Tron; his program was looking at him with utmost devotion. Alan was trying to forget his earlier nightmare and Tron’s tired, sad expression in the dream. They were going to make it, Alan told himself, they would defeat the MCP and he would get home. If not right away, Lora and Flynn would search for him and would eventually figure out what happened – or she would see the new, unidentified program that appeared in the system… wouldn’t she?

 

  Once accessed the disc, Alan was working quickly. He knew the codes by heart, he just had to find the appropriate lines to modify and enter the new information. It took long; had he been sitting at his terminal, it would have been one click to download all that information that he had to enter manually now. When finished, he saved the updates and closed the disc.

 

  Tron reached out hesitantly. The program trusted him, Alan knew that much by now, but he also knew that a wrong line of coding could kill his creation. Tron took the disc and returned it to its port. After a long moment the program nodded.

 

  “I am ready,” he said. Yori and Ram shared a relieved embrace and Alan smiled, for the first time since he had wakened up from his nightmare.

 

  They continued the journey. They were close now and Alan felt an actual anticipation before the final meeting with the Master Control Program. He was wondering how the program would look like and how their encounter would take place. Would there be an actual fight or they would just walk there to destroy the program with Tron’s disc? He was entertaining himself with those ideas, until he was shaken alert by Tron’s angry cry.

 

  “Sark!” the security program yelled. They all looked there and saw Sark’s carrier emerging from a nearby canyon. The aircraft was coming at them with great speed and collided with the sailer just a moment later. The smaller ship broke in half immediately; the forebody got separated and disappeared from sight, while the rest of the sailer was swallowed up by the Red aircraft.

 

  Once the broken sailer came to a rest inside of the carrier, Ram and Alan jumped to their feet. Ram helped Yori to stand up; Alan was looking for Tron to no avail. Ram and Yori seemed to be alright. Before they could have spoken, a door opened and a unit of Red guards marched inside.

 

  The three of them were dragged out from the hangar, through a long corridor and then were tossed into a cell.

 

  “Where is Tron?” Ram asked. They looked at each other at loss; none of them saw the security program after the crash. The door of the cell opened suddenly and Sark walked in, gloating.

 

  “So,” he grinned. “We have erased that program.”

 

  Yori cried out in distress. Ram put his hand on her shoulder in an encouraging gesture and he stared at Sark angrily. Sark looked at Alan and his cheerful expression soared. Alan was delighted to see that; he was hoping to give the same sorrow to Sark’s user in the real world soon.

 

  “You…” Sark said, gritting his teeth. Alan could not tell why the commander got so upset at seeing him; for his resemblance to Tron or for the bitter memory of the escape from the Arena. “There is nothing special about you. I will take some religious fanatics to the Master Control. When I disembark, this ship and everything that remains on board, will automatically derezz. This means you.”

 

  Sark looked over the three of them once more and he left. The door of the cell closed.

 


	8. Chapter 8

  They were standing in silence. There came no sound from outside and Alan could not tell whether Sark and his entourage had left the ship already. Ram touched the door.

 

  “These walls,” he said. “It’s happening.”

 

  He looked back at Yori and Alan.

 

  “We failed,” Yori said. Alan looked at her and he saw that grief had overcome her after they had lost Tron.

 

  “We’re only going to fail if we give up!” Ram exclaimed. A deep murmur started inside the aircraft and the lights were blinking. Alan extended his arms toward the two programs.

 

  “I still have power,” he said. “Sark doesn’t know that.”

 

  Ram rushed back to them and Alan put his arms around the two programs. Contrary to his own reassuring words Alan Bradley was not quite certain if they would survive – this time it was the three of them and he felt exhausted. He closed his eyes and focused nevertheless, wishing them to live, commanding his own energy to provide for all of them. The lights went out and the structure of the ship changed; the walls and floors disappeared and it seemed like they were standing in the middle of nothingness. The carrier ships was reduced into simple energy lines, a basic formula, kept together merely by Alan’s presence.

 

  Alan staggered; he felt dizzy and lightheaded. Yori and Ram were still holding him and for that he did not fall back. When he opened his eyes, he met Yori’s inquisitive stare. They were still there, alive, with their circuitry pulsing bright and strong.

 

  “You saved us,” she said. “How?”

 

  “Come on,” Ram said before Alan could have answered. They were running, out from the cell, along the corridors to the bridge. The aircraft was deserted and the bridge, which still held its normal appearance, empty.

 

  “Do something with these controls!” Ram said to Yori. She rushed there and took over.

 

  “I’m on it,” she replied, her voice calm and confident once more. Alan looked down. He saw a great plain down there, rigged by deep, red energy lines. A giant structure was towering ahead, a pyramid in the middle of the dead mesa. Red energy beams linked the tower to far, unseen parts of the system, ensuring the control of the MCP. Another, vertical line connected the tower to the interface of the system… to the real world.

 

  “The MCP,” Alan said. “The heart of the whole system.”

 

  “We’re getting closer,” Ram said. They could see the small ship Sark used to disembark; the vehicle was docked down there, not far from the pyramid. Alan glanced back and he saw Yori working on the control panel in order to keep the remains of the ship intact and heading at the MCP.

 

  “Look at that!” Yori exclaimed. Down under a program emerged from the ground, a creature that was growing bigger and stronger continuously. It was Sark; with a horrible, deep wound on his head he was moving as if he was a puppet with strings attached to his limbs. He was heading at the pyramid. As the derezzing ship was getting closer to the MCP and they saw behind the giant cylinder, Alan spotted Tron inside. The security program was trying to get to the MCP; his disc sprang back from the spinning base of the monstrous program. The Master Control Program looked like something straight out from a feverous nightmare – a glowing, red column with the bloated face of a beast. It spoke, in a thunderous voice, full of malice.

 

  “Your User can’t help you now, my little program,” he said. Sark arrived and stood above Tron, ready to crush him with one giant footstep. Tron sprinted away and threw his disc at Sark; the disc bounced back as if it was a harmless piece of toy.

 

  Alan was looking down at them with fury. His anger was ignited by the MCP’s words, by the assumption that he would let his program down.

 

  “I got it,” he said quietly. He looked at Yori. “Steer us over by the beam. Right next to it.”

 

  “What good will that do?” Ram asked nervously. Alan did not answer, he just walked to the edge, getting ready to leap. It was the only way for him to interfere in time – and maybe the last chance for him to get home. Yori must have figured his intention, because she cried out.

 

  “Don’t! You’ll be derezzed!”

 

  Most surprisingly her look gave Alan a final push, a last bit of encouragement before the possibly fatal jump; he had never seen Lora looking at him like that, for if anyone, it was her, Lora that would have gotten into a risky situation and he, Alan, that would have tried to hold her back anxiously. He smiled.

 

  “Don’t worry,” he said and he jumped.

 

  He was falling. As soon as he hit the vertical beam, his fall slowed down and he descended into the core. It was overwhelming; the initial contact with the beam felt like a smaller electric shock and then it was all over him, like the sting of a hundred angry bees against his skin. It hurt, but as soon as the first shock passed, he was able to think clearly once more. Right away Alan knew that he won; as if time had slowed down around him, his very presence distracted the Master Control Program to an extent it was no longer able to control Sark and the shield around his core.

 

  And then… nothing. Alan blinked. Time stopped; he saw Sark outside and he saw Tron with his disc in his hand, frozen in the middle of a throw. The ship was hanging over the pyramid, halted in mid-air. And Alan heard to voice, the sound of the Master Control Program. The voice was full of anger. It told Alan that he was never supposed to live, that he was never going to leave the system – the algorithm created to bring him down through the laser had been deleted immediately after his arrival. And Alan knew that the voice was telling the truth, because he was right there, inside of the MCP’s core and he saw the deleted memory. He was also told that once trapped inside, he would not be able to contact the User world, that they would never find out what had happened to him – that there was a hopeless life waiting for him inside of a computer after the impending victory.

 

  Alan stirred. Everything was quiet and motionless around him. It felt like a moment in the middle of a car crash, as if he was sitting in an overturning car, just before the impact – as if a voice had told him that he would not survive. He shrugged. This was not what he wanted, obviously, but misfortune was always an option. And he was going to die for something bigger: for his friends, for science, to erase this rogue program – it was sad, yet it was acceptable.

 

  But now the voice was speaking again, and the tone was now different, sweet. There was another solution, it said, another way out from this situation; nobody had to die here. The Master Control Program opened up his memory banks for Alan, and he saw information… knowledge of the User world, more than he or anyone would have suspected. There was a vast knowledge and understanding of the real world and human nature and there were detailed plans how to make a change. Climate change, war, famine – the MCP had answers to the great questions of humanity, even if the answers were written by blood. Nations would be eradicated, the same way the MCP had erased so many program and freedom would be history in the User world, just as it was in the system. But at the end the MCP and Dillinger, or whoever would sit at the large desk up there at that time, would give peace to the world, or whatever would be left of it, a final efficiency of the machine. Alan did not understand why the MCP would reveal that diabolical plan for him and the answer arrived right away. Maybe, the Master Control Program was saying, maybe Alan could be part of the plan. Perhaps he could join the MCP; his knowledge and human insight could be part of the mechanism. That way they could find a quicker, less painful way for humanity to reach that maximum potential. Together they could be bigger than any kingdom or government before; an intelligence, collecting and analyzing all information and making decisions for people – instead of them. ‘Join us, join us, join us,’ small, taunting voices were chanting and in that endless moment it posed like an actual choice for Alan Bradley, a real alternative next to the bleak, long life trapped inside a machine. He could make that work, he thought, for the MCP had already had plans to take over the Pentagon, it was already about to infiltrate foreign governments and military systems. With him present, the transition could be bloodless and maybe the MCP could give the world unity and peace at the end.

 

  He looked up. But that, he thought, would mean that once this moment would pass, Sark would reach out, tear the carrier out from the sky and he would smash it against the ground. Then he would lift an enormous foot and crush Tron. That would be how that great unity would begin, that would be the beginning of the brave new world. Alan moved and he smashed the core of the MCP. The voice that surrounded him, that had been talking to him luringly, changed and became a thunderous scream. The moment passed and outside Tron threw his disc. The disc hit the core of the MCP and the world exploded.

 

  When he woke up it was bright around him; it was so bright that Alan thought he would wake up at Lora’s terminal, with her kneeling above him, asking if he was alright. But as he sat up he saw that he was still wearing the same outfit he had been wearing since his arrival into the system and that it was still the dark sky of the computer above. The world lit up with the energy withheld until and there were programs celebrating around him, his companions and the ones freed from the pyramid. The MCP and Sark’s remains were gone.

 

  “We did it!” Ram said cheerfully. Alan looked around and he saw Dumont amongst the program around them.

 

  “Video warriors!” Dumont said. “Look at the I/O Towers!”

 

  The towers that were almost invisible in the distance before, came to life and lit up with a bright, blue light. The light beams flared up and connected the digital world with their Users once more. Yori, who was kneeling next to Alan, put her hand on his shoulder encouragingly.

 

  “We will find the way for you to get back home,” she said. Alan nodded and he stood up. He could not help, but he remembered his nightmare on the solar sailer, the dark premonition, which was more real now than ever.

 

  “Yes,” he said. “We will find the way.”

 

  He followed Dumont, who was looking at the view with a bright face.

 

  “Every tower is lighting up,” the guardian declared and programs cheered again. Ram put his hand on Alan’s shoulder and smiled reassuringly. Yori joined them as well and they were looking at the magnificent view with renewed hopes. It took Alan some time to realize that Tron was not there amongst the festive crowd and he looked back above his shoulder. And Alan saw his program standing behind; instead of being in the middle of the celebration and being applauded for his deeds, Tron was standing there alone, looking at the others with a tired, sad face that was familiar for Alan Bradley from his dream before. He looked at Tron and he felt Yori’s arm around his own shoulders. Tron slowly bowed his head.

 

  Alan turned back to the cheerful crowd and the view of the free system.

 


End file.
